(Matt Drzik/Beaver County Radio)
(Photos by Matt Drzik)

“Why not try and bring a hotel back to Rochester?”

Those words from Kenneth Majors sparked a project that lasted for half a decade, and culminated in a ceremonial ribbon-cutting on Thursday afternoon at the Rochester Hotel on West Washington Avenue. The ceremony was co-hosted by the Beaver County Chamber of Commerce inside the renovated Diamond Lounge area.

Majors, along with Brian York, bought the property on April 1, 2017 after seeing it abandoned for several years, and “took two years to gut it and three to get where we are now,” he told Beaver County Radio. “Thanks to COVID, it took a three-year project and turned it into a five-year project.”

The pandemic was not the only obstacle for the new facility, as York explained: “Politically, it’s been an uphill battle. Rochester has been supporting us; we need more support from the local area to use this facility and grow up the area around Rochester.”

The hotel, which occupies the same residence as the former Penn Beaver hotel, has fully opened with 54 rooms of hotel space, a newly renovated bar and lounge known as the Diamond Lounge (where the ceremony took place), and the Penn Beaver restaurant–a nod to the hotel that preceded it.

Also in attendance at the ribbon-cutting were Rochester mayor Keith Jackson, Rochester councilman Rico Elmore, Beaver County Commissioner Jack Manning, and outgoing Beaver County Chamber of Commerce president Helen Kissick.

“This is, to me, the biggest development that’s gone on in Rochester in 40 years,” York said. “This is very, very good for Beaver County.”